El Salvador’s leading news outlet, El Faro, said on Wednesday that the phones of a majority of its employees had been hacked with the spyware Pegasus, which has been used by governments to monitor human rights activists, journalists and dissidents. The revelation came just months after the American government blacklisted the Israeli firm that produces Pegasus, the NSO Group, in an attempt to curb the largely unregulated global market in spyware.
According to Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School and Access Now, two cybersecurity watchdogs that analyzed the phones of El Faro’s employees, the spyware had been installed on the phones of 22 reporters, editors and other employees between July 2020 and November 2021. During that time, El Faro was investigating the Salvadoran government’s clandestine connections to the country’s gangs and corruption scandals. The government has denied any connection to local gangs.
— source nytimes.com | Jan. 12, 2022